German Vote Bolsters Rescue

BERLIN—Europe cleared a major hurdle toward boosting the firepower of its bailout fund after Germany agreed to increase its contribution—yet even supporters of the measures warned further moves will likely be necessary to quell the euro zone's debt crisis.

Germany's parliament approved legislation to increase the euro-zone bailout fund's lending capacity to €440 billion ($596 billion) from around €250 billion, and to make the fund more flexible. German Chancellor Angela Merkel managed to scrape together enough votes from...